


The Seventh Prince

by LicieOIC



Category: De vilde Svaner | The Wild Swans - Hans Christian Andersen, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M, Suptober (Supernatural), Suptober 2020 (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27317248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LicieOIC/pseuds/LicieOIC
Summary: Sir Dean Winchester is Prince Castiel's personal knight/bodyguard. He's the youngest of seven princes who were just recently released from a spell that had turned them all into swans. The incomplete cure has left Castiel with only one working arm, the other he keeps swathed in a shawl. It doesn't matter to Dean. He's already smitten.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 17
Kudos: 86





	The Seventh Prince

Dean applauded along with the rest of the wedding guests as the young queen kissed the king. Now that she was finally able to speak, it had seemed only right to have a second wedding, one where she could do more than nod. He still didn’t fully understand the particulars of why she’d needed to keep silent for seven years as she’d worked to undo a spell set upon her seven brothers, but he figured he didn’t really need to know. Magic didn’t come with handy explanations, magic just _was_.

Movement to his left drew his attention away from the happy couple and he saw his charge, Prince Castiel, rising to leave the garden where the wedding had taken place. Bound to protect him, Dean followed as he always did.

“I’m not going far, you don’t have to come with me,” said the prince, his rough voice a bit softer than usual.

“Actually, I do,” said Dean, before adding with respect, “your highness.”

“Suit yourself, Sir Winchester.”

“Will you ever call me Dean?” It was a question he asked often. “I hear ‘Sir Winchester’ and I think you’re talking about my father.”

“Perhaps someday.” It was the answer the prince always gave, though he seemed more preoccupied that day.

Dean hadn’t been Castiel’s knight protector for very long, but he thought he knew what had him so upset. Eying the red shawl that was perpetually wrapped around the prince’s left arm from daybreak when Dean would join him to sundown when he would leave for bed, Castiel only possessed one good arm, which left him unable to join in the happy applause for his sister.

The knight stayed only steps behind Castiel as they mounted a tall hill overlooking the nearby forest. They would often end up going on walks in this manner. Whenever his mood would darken, Castiel would always withdraw from his family rather than burden them with his melancholy. But Dean saw it all. The troubled expressions, the heavy sighs, the longing looks toward the horizon. Normally, he wouldn’t say anything, it wasn’t his place, but his heart had gone out to the prince. He seemed so lonely, so isolated. If he had to endure punishment for overstepping his boundaries, so be it.

“Do you, uh…” He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, looking everywhere but at the prince. “Is there anything you’d… like to, you know, talk about?”

Castiel flashed his vibrantly blue eyes at Dean and the knight tried to appear nonchalant, desperately hoping his face wasn’t turning red. It was painfully obvious that feelings and talking about them were not his forte, but he didn’t retract his offer. At first, Dean thought the prince might refuse or else ignore him entirely, but then he sighed.

“I was just thinking,” he said, looking back the way they’d come toward the wedding where the guests were beginning to move inside for the party. “This might be the last time all eight of us are together for a long while. Lucifer left pretty much as soon as the spell was broken, that was no surprise, but then Michael followed him soon after. Now Gabriel has been talking about leaving and seeing the world too. I have no doubt that the rest of my brothers will go at some point. And that leaves me. Here. Going nowhere.”

“You’ll always have the queen,” Dean pointed out.

“And I love her dearly,” said Castiel. “But she has her own family now, with two children who are terrified of me. Not that I can blame them.”

“Where would you go?”

Castiel shook his head. “I have no idea. But the desire is always there. The need to… just be free.” He lifted his head, casting his gaze over the tops of the trees where green met endless blue above. “I miss the sky.”

Dean blinked. “The sky?” Then the penny dropped. “You can’t fly.”

“Not anymore.”

Taking a step closer, Dean tentatively asked, “W-what’s it like?”

A small rare smile ghosted across Castiel’s lips and it was like a bit of sunshine peeking through the clouds. “Exhilarating. It was the only time I didn’t feel trapped in my own body. Swooping through the clouds, gliding on the wind like I was weightless, landing on water and floating like a ship, completely effortlessly.”

Dean’s heart was pounding just at the thought. “Sounds terrifying to me.”

Castiel chuckled and it felt like winning something. “I suppose it would.”

“Why couldn’t you go somewhere if you wanted to, like your brothers did? Just—not the sky.”

“And spread more rumors about the monster? I couldn’t.” He must have caught Dean’s expression because he added, “I know what’s said about me. It’s why I keep my distance from my family as much as possible. I don’t want them to be feared and whispered about as well.”

They were silent for a while. Castiel closed his eyes, lifting his face to the breeze. Dean kept his gaze on the prince, watching his dark hair play in the wind. He leaned his weight on one leg, his left hand going automatically to rest on the hilt of the dagger he always kept at his side. He could only imagine what Castiel was thinking, feeling so alone, essentially going from one cage to another, living in a body that was only mostly his.

“You’ll always have me,” he said, suddenly.

Castiel’s head snapped in his direction, his eyes wide, but then he scoffed. “That’s a nice thought—”

“I mean it,” Dean interrupted. “I want to stay. With you. I’ll always be by your side.”

The moment hung between them, heavy with things unsaid, though it was still far more than Dean had ever intended to say. He almost wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole, but then the prince would be alone and he’d _just_ promised him he wouldn’t leave.

Slowly, but with far more dexterity than Dean would normally expect from someone with only one working hand, Castiel untied the knot of the sling wrapped around his left arm, then unwound the fabric and pulled it free.

All of Dean’s breath left him in a _whoosh_ as the prince stretched out his wing, the feathers bright white in the afternoon sun, like the wing of an angel. It was so massive, even though they stood a few steps apart, Dean could swear he felt the tips brush his cheek as the wing extended past his head. It was softer than anything and left the knight with the crazy urge to bury his hands in it.

“Now do you understand?” Castiel asked. “Why I can never let anyone get too close?”

“It’s… beautiful,” blurted Dean, the first thought in his head tumbling out of his mouth like an idiot.

“Beautiful,” the prince repeated, his eyes dark as he lifted his face to look at the wing. “Sooner or later you would see it as I do. A curse. And you would ask to be assigned a new duty. One where you could forget about me.”

“I won’t,” said Dean, speaking quickly when Castiel opened his mouth to argue, “let me prove it to you.”

That seemed to bring the prince up short, making him pause in the act of folding his wing back down by his side. “How?”

“Let me stay with you.”

The wing settled, rippling elegantly. “For how long?”

Dean shrugged. “Well… as long as it takes.”

Castiel looked at him for a long moment and Dean wondered what he saw. Blue against green, like the sky meeting the forest.

“I’ll give you a year,” he said, at last. “If you remain by my side that long, I’ll believe you.”

“Only one year?” said Dean, giving him a teasing half-smile. “Why not seven?”

“I don’t think I’d be able to wait that long to claim you.”

It was Dean’s turn to be brought up short. “What?”

“And once mine, I won’t be able to let you go. Remember that.”

“Why? W-what would happen if I left then?” Was this more magic?

“It would kill me.” Castiel tilted his head in that maddening way he had. “Don’t you know?”

Dean shook his head. The prince closed the distance between them, reaching up with his right hand to touch Dean’s face. His thumb slid across the apple of his cheek as his fingers traced around the outside of his ear. Shivering, Dean resisted the urge to close his eyes.

“Swans mate for life… Dean.”

The knight’s stomach clenched involuntarily, hearing the prince use his given name for the first time. Swallowing thickly, he asked, “That a promise?”

Castiel’s deep blue eyes were stormy as he answered, “A warning.”

**Author's Note:**

> I may continue this later if I'm feeling brave...


End file.
